Living in Turkey

Description

The Turkish home is a living tradition whose refinement has continued uninterrupted for over 10,000 years from the earliest recorded dwellings of Middle Anatolia to the modern Istanbul townhouse. During this time, the rise and fall of great empires - Hittite, Byzantine, Ottoman - has brought a mosaic of influences from as far afield as Africa and the Balkans. Certain felicitous principles have come to dominate Turkish domestic design: simplicity, economy and a respect for human needs. Living in Turkey draws aside the veil of privacy to lead us into these discreet, carefully hidden interiors. We see houses that have evolved to suit local conditions and needs, from the earthen buildings of Cappadocia and Kayseri and the whitewashed walls of the Aegean coast to the stone masonry of the Middle and Eastern Anatolia. At the heart of the Turkish experience is Istanbul: a twentieth-century metropolis still filled with beauty and mystery, tinged with the colours of ancient cultures and past times. Old wooden buildings dream in huge gardens along the Bosphorus; the angles of contemporary apartments are softened with accessories and kilims; in every house are Turkish coffee-pots, handmade emb

Born in 1928,Ara Guler is not only one of the masters of photography inTurkey, but holds a prominent place in the pantheon of the world's great photographers. In 1958 he became a photojournalist for Time-Life, Paris Match and Der Stern. He has received countless awards, and has photographed many luminaries includingWinston Churchill, Indira Gandhi, Bertrand Russell,Alfred Hitchcock, Maria Callas, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.